JOURNEY BACK FROM DARKNESS BEGINS WITH COUNTY PROGRAM

Community Corrections Helps Addicts Get Life Straightened
Out

Glenwood Springs, Colo. - When Nathan Bassetti turned himself in at
the Garfield County Jail two years ago he was homeless and addicted
to methamphetamine.

Now two years into a four-year sentence to the county Community
Corrections program, he's a new man - literally.

Community Corrections is an alternative sentencing option for mostly
nonviolent, midlevel felony offenders. Although they're housed in the
county jail they're not part of that general population but are
housed in a segregated area of the jail. Instead of sitting in a jail
cell, they are released every day to work and receive intensive
psychotherapy.

Most of the men who come through the doors of the program are there
on felony drug charges. Most are meth addicts. About half are
court-ordered into the program and half making a transition from
prison to life on the outside.

The majority are "people with a substance (abuse) problem that commit
a crime to support their habit or are under the influence or mentally
ill," said Community Corrections director Guy Meyer.

Garfield County has participated in the Community Corrections program
since 1982, sending people sentenced to the program to other
counties. It was not until 2003 that it set aside a portion of the
Garfield County jail to house its own clients. Since then, Meyer
said he's seen a shift in the type of clients, as they are called.
Rather than being strictly criminals, they are also drug addicts. The
program has also shifted its focus from rehabilitation of criminals
to treatment of the drug addicted.

The end remains the same, however: to help them learn to be
self-sufficient and live without drugs and without repeating criminal
activity.

"It's led to a different path of thinking," Meyer said. The new
approach seeks to establish trust in the clients, to help them find
their way back from their addiction.

All those on the Community Corrections staff, including case workers
and therapists, look at the problem of bringing clients back to a
clean life "from every angle," said Community Corrections drug and
alcohol program coordinator John Dent-Romero.

Clients must pay for their room and board, $17 a day. The actual cost
is $39 a day, which is supplemented by the state. They also pay
court-ordered restitution, child support, or other outstanding debts.
They also receive counseling about how to manage their money.

Bassetti, who is 28 and lives in Parachute, came to the program after
being charged with drug possession and "fighting" in 2002. He was
initially sentenced to two years of probation but "got strung out on
meth" during that time.

The turning point

What turned things around for Bassetti was a phone conversation with
his daughter, who lives with her mother in Alaska. It was an
emotional eye-opener for him.

"She said, 'When are you coming here, Daddy? Can you take me to the
park?' I turned myself in the next day," he said.

Bassetti was sentenced to four years in the Community Corrections
program.

When he showed up to begin his jail time he was basically homeless.
"I'd come off from living on the streets."

He'd worked as a rough-neck on drilling rigs, where they provide some
housing for workers who pull lengthy work schedules. "I worked a lot
of overtime so I always had a place to stay."

He moved from state to state with the rigs, from Utah to Wyoming to
Colorado.

He became addicted to meth.

"I was running with the wrong people. I was running from life ... and
from my inner demons," he said.

When he showed up at the county jail in Glenwood Springs to begin the
program, he was as low as he could get. He'd been doing meth
intravenously and thought about ending his life.

"I was suicidal. I had a three to four gram-a-day habit," he
said.

He couldn't eat or sleep. He weighed only 106 pounds during that
time. "I was in really bad shape."

Breaking his addiction wasn't easy.

The first three to four months "were really rough," Bassetti said.
There is no drug - like methadone is sometimes prescribed for heroin
addicts - to ease the physical symptoms of going cold turkey from
meth.

He also worked through a program, Strategy for Self-Improvement and
Change.

"That helped me more than anything in my life," he said. "It helped
me change my thinking."

Ultimately, it enabled him to cut loose from the people he was using
drugs with. "That was the hardest thing," he said. "I just didn't
want to live like that no more."

In March he completed the residential part of his sentence. Bassetti
is now working in construction, operating heavy equipment. He meets
with his case manager every week and submits to a urine test.
Community Corrections personnel also check on him at home to make
sure he's where he should be.

"I have an 8 p.m. curfew," he said.

Life as Nathan Bassetti lives it now "couldn't be better." He's
gained 90 pounds since being in community corrections.

"Most people don't recognize me."

If they do, and if they're the people he cut loose from his bad old
drug days, they get the message he's not interested in them anymore.

He also looks toward the future and a life in Alaska with his
daughter. And a father-daughter trip to the park.